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‘Fortunate son’ rap threatens Ben Quayle’s reelection bid

Former vice president Dan Quayle's son Ben is facing a tough fight. | AP Photos

“I knew that if I were to get involved, to lead, the name Quayle would put a big target on my back,” he told POLITICO. “What I’ve been trying to do is just work really hard through the legislative process, work my committees really hard and develop the respect of my colleagues.”

“The image that he’s trying to create of me is something I’m not,” Quayle said of Schweikert.

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While Quayle has tried to create his own identity on Capitol Hill, his family connections are helping to fuel his campaign. Quayle’s sister, Corrine Quayle, has poured $50,000 into a super PAC supporting his campaign, and he’s received donations from GOP power players, like former President George W. Bush, former first lady Laura Bush and former Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

Quayle also received an endorsement from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who recently flew in to hold a fundraiser for him.

But questions about his seriousness keep popping up. He has spent much of the final week of the race fending off questions about taking part in a late-night swim in the Sea of Galilee last summer with other House Republicans — one of them naked — and their spouses.

Quayle denied doing anything inappropriate, saying he had “a glass of wine” beforehand and calling it a religious experience.

To Quayle, the negative attention is a product of the same hostile media that went after his father, forever known as the vice president who misspelled ‘potato.’

“The media loves taking shots at a Quayle,” he said. “My dad was the first person of the baby boom generation on a national ticket, and the media didn’t like that, and they treated him extremely unfairly.”

Quayle and Schweikert are a study in contrasts. While Quayle comes off as casual and laid back, Schweikert emits an almost penetrating intensity. He has developed a reputation as a relentless — even obsessive — campaigner.

At his campaign headquarters, he showed off boxes of thousands of handwritten notes he and his wife, Joyce, had composed to voters in a plea for their support.

A former state legislator who spent 16 years in elected office prior to winning a House seat in 2010, Schweikert is a familiar figure to many in the Scottsdale area. On Capitol Hill, he is known as a vocal conservative who has, at times, broken with his party’s leadership.

As the race comes to a close, Quayle’s campaign has sought to make the case that Schweikert’s hard-charging effort to brand Quayle as an undisciplined partier has gone too far. It’s launched a website, DishonestDave.com, which accuses Schweikert of saying “anything to get elected.”

And last week, Republican Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, both of whom have endorsed Quayle, held a news conference to blast Schweikert for a mailer that said Quayle “goes both ways” on key issues.

Quayle’s campaign has called the attack a veiled reference to bisexuality, which Schweikert’s campaign says is nonsense.

“The innuendo there is obvious, and I think it was over the top,” McCain told POLITICO of the mailer. “I didn’t like the tenor of it.”

To Schweikert, the complaining is simply more evidence of what he calls Quayle’s sense of entitlement.

“It’s almost like you point out one of their sins, and it’s like they say, ‘You’re not allowed to say that,’” he said. “I’ve never been involved in a campaign where they take offense to every explanation you give of what they’ve done wrong.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of Rep. David Schweikert’s wife. Schweikert’s wife is Joyce.

I have no opinion on Ben Quayle but I do know I am getting leary of the political families we are starting to have - Kennedy's ,Bush's, etc.. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't the career politicians - we need term limits and we need some real reform on how the whole process works. I'd like to see a cap on how much money can be spent and how soon the campaigning can be done. I don't know about you but I'm sick of paying for politicians to do nothing more than fund raising and campaigning. It's about time they were forced to actually do the job they were elected for.

Give me a break - one doesn't have to be poor when growing up to be a politician.

Look at the amateur obama...growing up with his WHITE mom, going to WHITE high school, in a choom gang with WHITE kids, going to prestigious colleges/universities, living in expensive houses on land weaseled by a corrupt thug (currently in jail), hanging out with WHITE reactionaries such as ayers, etc etc etc.

Stop with the "black president" schtick - he is as much white as he is black. And his life experience has not even been close to the experience blacks go through - so don't tell me obama feels what it is like, or how he relates to "his people"

He is an amateuristic political hack and nothing more. If he was speaking from his heart he wouldn't need his teleprompters - transparent?, yes - there is no substance within!

Jurriaan Maessen Infowars.com August 26, 2012 In a report published last April by the Royal Society titled People and the Planet, the elitist UK-based society calls for massive population reduction and de-industrialization of the west. However drenched in euphemisms, the report cannot conceal its ominous undertones. Listed among its “key recommendations” the report proposes several measures similar to the one put out recently by MIT in which a drastic reduction of the population is called for in the name of “modelling” and predictions. Immediately after the Royal Society released its call for more death and mega-cities, none other than Paul Ehrlich weighed in to regurgitate his own eugenic fancies. The Guardian reported that Ehrlich, who contributed to the report, eagerly endorses its conclusions. In regards to redistributing wealth, Ehrlich is quite upfront about his opinion on the matter: “They (population and resources) multiply together. You have to deal with them together. We have too much consumption among the rich and too little among the poor. That implies that terrible thing that we are going to have to do which is to somehow redistribute access to resources away from the rich to the poor.” “How many of your support depends on lifestyles.”, Ehrlich stated. “We came up with 1.5 to 2 billion because you can have big active cities and wilderness. If you want a battery chicken world where everyone has minimum space and food and everyone is kept just about alive you might be able to support in the long term about 4 or 5 billion people. But you already have 7 billion. So we have to humanely and as rapidly as possible move to population shrinkage.” Complete article at: http://www.infowars.com/veiled-threats-by-prominent-neo-malthusians-cull-human-population-or-expect-vast-die-off/

Rep. Ben Quayle, the well-to-do son of the former vice president, has heard it all.

But just when he thought he’d begun to shed the rap and establish his own profile as a serious-minded lawmaker, all the old knocks are back in Quayle’s face, this time threatening to send the first-term Republican packing from Congress just two years after he arrived.

Ben has benefitted by being the privilged son of a man who benefitted from being the husband of a privileged wife.

But it's nice to see that Ben inherited his Dad's conservative intellect, and their ability to blame others in the face of FACTS.

"Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement." -- Ben's Dad, Dan Quayle, 1988 Once just a heartbeat away from being an American President.

I was amazed he was elected in the first place but Mommy and Daddy have a lot of pull in the GOP in Arizona. Schweikert better be careful........Mommy will have Jan Brewer go after him. Arizona has their share of nuts for politicians but Junior is not leadership material. He's another rich kid with a silver spoon in his mouth who got the job because of his connections. I can think of a number of older politicians in the past from wealthy families who worked many years for that honor and had integrity......the new breed doesn't cut it.